Namjoon lay sprawled out on the hardwood floor, head leaned sideways to watch the back of Yoongi’s as he worked at their shared desk. He’d been in the same position for what felt like hours—hunched over his notebook and miscellaneous scraps of paper, music just barely audible from his headphones. Both of them were told to work on writing a few tracks to hype up their newly forming group, but Namjoon hadn’t been able to keep himself focused for more than five minutes at a time and gave up, deciding instead to try again early the next morning.Yoongi had rolled his eyes at that, probably thinking how worthless of a leader Namjoon would make for having such little self-discipline—which didn’t bother him nearly as much as he thought it should.

The younger sighed, turning his head to stare back up at the ceiling. He was bored. Bored and hungry, but disrupting Yoongi to go get food with him was out of the question. Where Namjoon could be incredibly difficult to deal with when writing and producing, Yoongi was always… well, downright impossible.

As much of a stretch as it seemed, there were times when he reminded Namjoon of one of his old friends from the underground. That guy’s practically friends with everyone nowadays though, isn’t he? Namjoon thought as he fished his phone from his pocket and held it up to his face, opening twitter and typing into the search ‘ZICO92’.  It had been years since they’d last talked. Hell, he probably didn’t even remember who Namjoon was anymore, but Namjoon decided ‘screw it,’ he was going to send him a message anyways. Jiho hadn’t seemed the type to let fame get too much to his head… maybe he’d respond.

While Yoongi was off in his own lyrical world, tapping away at his pen rhythmically, Namjoon to his side and snapped a picture of him. He sent a quick ‘hey man, it’s been ages’ sort of message before sending the picture of Yoongi’s hunched figure.

“Been working towards our own debut. Dunno why, but he kinda reminds me of you when we worked together as kids ㅋㅋㅋ ”

Namjoon returned to his original position, setting his phone on his stomach while tracing fingers over his chest. He sighed and closed his eyes, brightly coloured shapes dancing behind his eyelids from the ceiling lights. What if he couldn’t handle being leader? If Yoongi was anything like Jiho, maybe Namjoon should have a serious talk with their managers… Then again, as hard as Yoongi worked for himself, he didn’t seem to give a when it came to others. It was really gonna be a hassle getting him assimilated to a group dynamic…

Namjoon could feel the pressure of responsibility weigh down on his shoulders again. It was heavy, a little terrifying, and he wished he had someone to talk to about it that would actually understand. He was not ready for this. And as much as Yoongi acted like nothing ever bothered him, he probably wasn’t anywhere near ready either.

Before Namjoon could get too caught up in his thoughts, he felt his phone buzz. Picking it up and unlocked the screen, he saw that Jiho had actually responded to him. The first message was an abundance of excited exclamations and cutesy emojis—the complete opposite of what he was expecting from his elder and from someone so respected in the underground scene. The next message was in response to the image of Yoongi.

“Oh, good luck~!! Hopefully he’s better looking than me as a kidㅋㅋㅋ You’ll never debut otherwiseㅋㅋㅋ ”

Namjoon smiled, feeling a little bit reassured in the fact that Jiho seemed to remember him and their short time working together. Fourteen and sixteen. So foolishly trying to act like adults… so foolishly sure of themselves and whatever ‘message’ they thought they had to share. Not that it was much different now. Yoongi still acted like he had all this street cred and life experience that, if true at all, was surely exaggerated. Namjoon often came across as a try-hard with unwarranted attitude and arrogance. Back then, Jiho, or at least Nacseo, was much the same, carrying himself like the older generation of khh artists—a big bark and bigger lyrical bite that demanded a level of respect that grated on everyone’s nerves.

Jiho’s driving force was the desire—no—absolute need to impress or push down those that doubted him… and look where he was now. Through all the personal struggle and group hardship, he bent but never broke. And though Yoongi was a lot more flippant and easy to brush things off, Namjoon could tell there was a part of him that desired to prove something to someone. A part that wanted recognition.

After a few more messages and exchanging numbers, Namjoon looked away from his phone towards Yoongi again. The older was turned around with his headphones around his neck, arm hanging over the back of the chair and his snapback pushed up away from his eyes. He raised an eyebrow, “Girlfriend?”

Namjoon gave him a confused look before sputtering, “Uhh, what? No, no… an old friend.”

“Yeah, sure,” Yoongi rolled his eyes. “Hey, can you order in food?”

As complex as Yoongi liked to make himself seem in his lyrics, Namjoon was still trying to get used to how sparingly he actually used the words he crafted so well in writing. “Let’s go out to eat instead. We’ve been inside all day and—”

“I really don’t feel lik—”

“Soon we won’t have the pleasure or free time to eat out. So just come on, man.” Namjoon grunted as he rolled over and pushed himself up. “You need a break anyway.”

Yoongi let out an annoyed sound as he closed his notebook and looked up. “Fine, but I get to choose where.”

Namjoon smiled, pocketing his phone. “Fine.”